By Emil Souleimanov and Megan Ouellette (the 27/11/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On October 11, word spread through social media about the murder of a 25-year old Russian by a suspect from the Caucasus during a street clash in Moscow’s southern periphery, an event that prompted anti-immigrant riots in Moscow accompanied by attacks on foreigners’ properties as well as foreigners themselves. The alleged murderer was arrested a few days later by Russian police, yet the scope of the riots and the authorities’ subsequent response signaled that much more was behind the incident than a simple, yet tragic, homicide.

On October 9, 2013, Azerbaijan held presidential elections and incumbent president Ilham Aliyev was re-elected for another five year term. The OSCE ODIHR observer mission, as well as the U.S. government, issued critical statements about the conduct of elections by Azerbaijani authorities that created tensions in Azerbaijan’s relationships with Western allies. Issues of concern need to be addressed, but they should not disrupt Western engagement and critical support for Azerbaijan’s sovereignty against the backdrop of assertive Russian policies to limit the Western presence in the broader Eastern European and Central Eurasian Space.

Kazakhstan joined the Customs Union with Belarus and Russia in 2010 and by 2012, it had evolved into a single Eurasian Economic Space known also as EurAsEc. The economic union is Putin’s principal foreign policy goal and Ukraine in the West and Kazakhstan in the East are particularly important to the success of this enterprise. Yet, while Ukraine was poised to instead sign a trade agreement with the EU at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on November 28-29, it has stopped preparing for that signing ceremony, evidently succumbing to Russian pressure. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has now registered increasingly vocal complaints about the direction EurAsEc is taking.

The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.